Weaves a Hundred Ravens In His Schemes
by EclecticParrot
Summary: Harry wrests control of his life from the Machiavellian and the darkly ambitious. The pressure is mounting, and Harry walks night-grey roads and windless havens, forging himself into a wizard worthy of a Dark Lord's fear. Neo-Independent!Harry
1. The Departed

I'd like to start off with a question: Do you remember the first time you read an Independent!Harry story?

It was probably a long time ago, and maybe involved some horrible cliches, like manipulative!Dumbledore, trunks with infinite compartments, Harry remembering Griphook's name, inheriting a dozen titles and a gazillion pounds, being heir to Gryffindor or Merlin, right?

But there was probably something else: we were drawn to these stories because we wanted to see Harry Potter grow up, become his own man, and defeat the bad guy.

What Independent!Harry really is, what it_ should_ be, is a _coming-of-age-story of the boy maturing and becoming a hero_, not a self-insert power-trip fantasy for teenage guys to get their rocks off to. The great stories, like Harry Potter and the Summer of Change by lorddwar, understood this. I was sad when the fandom seemed to have moved on, because in my opinion, it's the ideal time to write some great fics. Isn't it?

Everyone knows all the cliches by now, what belongs in a good story and what doesn't. Instead of moving on, we can keep this cornerstone of Harry Potter fanfiction alive and contribute to the body of great fics such as Summer of Change.

My mission statement is thus: to write an Independent!Harry story informed by hindsight; discarding the cliches, keeping the positives, and infusing it with original concepts, realistic characters, and new direction to create a more mature journey to becoming a hero.

A Neo-Independent!Harry story.

* * *

_Harry wrests control of his life from the Machiavellian and the darkly ambitious. The pressure is mounting, and Harry walks night-grey roads and windless havens with the doom of the Wizarding World in his shadow. _  
_This means making alliances from enmities old as time and sealing them with his blood._  
_This means finding wisdom in things like the shock of first love. _  
_This means becoming a leader and making the inevitable mistakes. _  
_This means making enemies out of good men. _  
_This means resurrecting sorceries from long-forgotten epochs, remembered only by the eye of ravens._

_Above all, this means forging himself into a wizard worthy of a Dark Lord's fear._

* * *

**Weaves a Hundred Ravens ****In His Schemes**  
By EclecticParrot  
Prologue: The Departed

* * *

Serenity eluded the Boy-Who-Lived that night.

Above, stars shivered in the enchanted metropolitan twilight. On the far edge of the Orion Arm, meteors showered the interstellar gulf, ruby diagonal glows blossoming in their wake. Further still, titans garlanded in hydrogen frost glided with the grace of orca whales. They cast their shadow on red giants, unknowable and cloaked by the celestial dark.

The observer of the solar theater sat, legs crossed and hands clasped over his knees. His expression was pensive, reflecting none of the wonder one should have felt with one face of the known universe bared before him. Occasionally he would glance downward and idly flick through the textbooks that lay open on the marble floor, interpreting the trajectories charted by the ancient wizard-astronomers.

His concentration was an erratic thing; every few minutes he would return to the binary star system that haunted his thoughts.

The image was resolved through the artificed lens of the Pennrose Telescope. They were comprised of multiple layers of cyril-glass, each immersed in alchemical mixtures for decades and each carefully joined with the others in a delicate matrix of spells. It was the finest instrument in astronomy in all the United Kingdom, housed in an institution to match its sophistication. Between the layers of stained glass in the dome, wave patterns and fractals danced as dark fluid swirled in hypnotic whirlpools. Harry was one of the few privileged enough to gaze through it - nearly - on a whim, owing to his celebrity.

The naked eye perceived a single star. In reality, there were two.

The elder Sirius B dimmed, dwelling in the shadow of Sirius A, the younger and more fiery brother. The sight tore at the raw wound - scarcely months old - with rust-eaten hooks, and the pangs of loss was almost a physical sensation.

They said the possibilities for the future were endless. But they would be wrong, for Sirius would never be with him.

That utter lack of subjectivity, the extinction of countless possibilities of shared moments they could have had… it was hard to cope with sometimes.

Above, the sea of stars twinkled maddeningly like the eyes of someone he knew.

Hatred flared within him. The rustle of pages broke the silence as he hurled the book away. It skidded along the curvature of the observation deck's wall before sliding to a halt. Harry ignored the sudden movement of the telescope's custodians in his peripheral vision. He stayed still, breathing fast. He raised his hands to show he was in control of himself and waited until the guards relaxed.

The intensity of his loathing surprised him; however misdirected he knew it to be.

He'd assigned his resentment to anyone and everyone. First to Bellatrix for sending his godfather through the fluttering veil.

Then to Sirius for coming to the Ministry.

It didn't stay with his godfather for long, before it turned to Kreacher, the treacherous house-elf who'd lied to him about Sirius's whereabouts.

Inevitably, he would think hatefully of Voldemort, for being ultimately responsible for most of what was wrong in his life.

Only, Voldemort was a little too… large-scale. He already accepted the Dark Lord as his nemesis. He took it for granted. Tragedies would happen despite his best efforts.

But other tragedies were _preventable_. These trust issues, the unwillingness to communicate, the lack of confidence; these were what got Sirius killed. Why did they have to present these weaknesses for Riddle to pounce on?

And so the current target of his negative thoughts was none other than Albus Dumbledore.

Above all, Harry acknowledged Dumbledore as the most important figure in the wizarding world of Britain, even in light of the prophecy. He'd contributed to the greatest strides in the research of magic in the modern era. He'd overseen wizarding politics for decades. He'd guided entire generations of young wizards and witches. He was a sorcerer of singular power, as he'd proven in the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort feared no other man.

He couldn't deny Dumbledore's desire for peace, he who had already defeated the Dark Wizard Grindelwald. Every time Harry anguished over his fate as the prophesied Chosen One, he reminded himself that Dumbledore had first defeated Grindelwald and then, instead of resting on his laurels, he'd led the Order of the Phoenix against a second Dark Lord. All of that trauma and bloodletting and impossible decision-making, without a prophecy to force his hand.

He'd lived past a century, ended two shattering wars, and was about to enter a third.

So many burdens willingly borne.

Yet, Dumbledore's greatest failing was his inability to judge how others would react to his decisions. He wanted to shield everyone – or at least, Harry specifically. The price of a simple conversation to clear things with Harry was apparently too high for the esteemed headmaster.

Harry shifted his body weight toward his right knee.

_That's enough._

He berated himself for letting his mind wander so far astray. He didn't come here to waste precious time mourning his godfather, or heap blame on others who were people that were doing their best. It would lead to dwelling on Sirius again, which would in turn engender more anger, more resentfulness. That kind of circular thinking could only end badly.

He leaned back and a peal of laughter fell unbidden from his lips. It died away faintly and left him feeling very weary and small.

"It'd be great if you came back. I really miss you," he said sincerely.

The words faded, swallowed whole by the confining silence.

He listened to it attentively for a while, then clenched his fists, willing himself to refocus on the task at hand.

"Come on," he muttered to himself, eyes downcast as he checked the notes scribbled in the margin of dog-eared pages. "Come on, come on, come on."

Firenze's words echoed in his ear.

_There is a way to know the final outcome of this prophecy if you can't bear not knowing..._

That was the beginning of his search. He'd followed the vague hints the centaur had left him with the night he'd left Hogwarts, hoping they would lead him to Fate's verdict, hidden somewhere in the night skies.

He wasn't even sure why he was really doing this. The revelation, if he ever found it, had a fifty percent chance of ruining his day.

Continuing blindly like this, though, not knowing while on a strict tether...

Firenze had been right. He couldn't bear not knowing.

_Magic doesn't make us unbreakable.  
_  
If necessary, he would find someone to Obliviate him of that knowledge. But he needed to know, just once.

He cycled through a dozen lenses, each causing new wellsprings of vibrant color, patterns, and phenomena to burst into being; the preceding images fading phantom-like into the dark.

_Not there, not there, not there… It_ should_ be there._

Frustration set in. He couldn't grasp where he'd made the infinitesimal mistake responsible for throwing off his measurements. It was hard to transform oneself into a fount of Astronomy knowledge in the span of a summer.

The door clicked, and before long someone was standing beside the entrance and coughing politely.

"Mr. Potter, your appointment has ended. Our institute appreciates your patronage and interest in astronomy," the representative said genially. Coiffed, hair styled impeccably, hands folded in front of him, he looked expectantly at the lonely client.

Harry blinked. The time had passed so fast. He'd have to schedule another visit once he looked over his work.

Heaving a sigh, he climbed to his feet, rolling his shoulders to relieve an incessant crick in his neck. Book tucked under his arm, he strode to the entrance, shook the representative's hand leadenly, and allowed himself to be escorted to the exit.

He heard a whirring sound as shutters closed over the dome. A curtain of darkness descended abruptly to cease the flow of that beautiful, ethereal starlight. The doors had swung open of their own accord, and a broomstick rose through the empty vertical space of many storeys to meet him.

He felt a fleeting pang of loss. He'd felt like he'd had a quiet moment of closeness with his godfather, and it had ended.

He clasped his fingers around the broomstick and put such thoughts away.

"Then I take my leave."

* * *

_To come, Chapter I: Starlight and Sunlight on Water_

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed the prologue.

I just want to say that I spend hours and hours writing and editing every update. Hopefully it shows, because I really care about writing something worth your time, and I hope you guys reciprocate by reviewing. It gets hard for me to stay motivated to write ten hours to produce a chapter when readers can't spare a minute to write a review. I don't expect a massive Joe6991 or The Santi kind of reception, but I hope you guys give feedback (and enjoy reading, that comes first, right?). It helps a lot, and vindicates my decision to spend time writing instead of studying more, or socializing more, or playing tennis more, or goofing around on the piano more, or doing my own reading more... There's a lot of other things fanfic writers could be doing; hearing from readers is what makes it all worth it.

Thanks to everyone who's supported me so far, I'll be posting the next chapter of _To Define Treachery _next, so anyone following it won't have to wait for much longer. :


	2. Starlight and Sunlight on Water

I'm blown away the response to the prologue! The scale of it is new; 66 favorites upon the first uploading is absolutely huge for me. The reviews were nearly all thoughtful and unique. Normally for my stories, a chapter gets one out of ten review that's like that. For the prologue, it was more like two-thirds. I'm really touched by it, and it really drove me to make this chapter surpass the expectations set by the prologue.

A big thank you to Swimdraconian, who generously gave his time to beta this chapter, giving me key suggestions and helping me drastically improve my writing. I believe Aristotle once said:

_"There are three things one can do to improve one's Harry Potter story. The first is to improve one's own writing prowess. The second is to have Swimdraconian beta it. The third is simply to be Swimdraconian."_

So I'm doing two out of the three. That's how serious I am about making this story as great as possible.

Ladies and gents, may I present the first chapter of the story proper.

* * *

**Weaves a Hundred Ravens In His Schemes  
**By EclecticParrot  
Chapter I: Starlight and Sunlight on Water

* * *

Dusk held the door for dawn, and Harry followed the winding countryside roads leading out of the suburbs of Little Whinging. Light began to colour the world once again, the rising summer dust hovering before him like a faint sun-born mist. Carrying only what he deemed to be bare necessities, Harry hitched the backpack slung over his arm higher up on his shoulder and tightened the worn strap of his wristwatch around his bony wrist. He wore a pair of jeans with fraying hems beginning to creep up over his ankles, along with a faded t-shirt so wash-worn that the cotton weave had become paper-thin and almost sheer around the collar and neckline. When the wind blew past, the loose fabric billowed up underneath his arms like a large white sail catching an offshore gust.

There were others headed in the same direction, middle-aged folk and teenagers on their morning runs passing him by. He was in no hurry himself, looking forward nonchalantly. He'd taken to waking before daybreak so he could enjoy his morning walks in peace. There would be no avoiding the hostile glares and jeers of the other residents of Surrey on the return trip - but that would come later.

He sometimes wondered what life would have been like if the Dursleys hadn't made him anathema to the families of Little Whinging. More than once he wondered what life here would be if he could look forward to coming home, instead of hating the very thought of it. To be greeted with friendly smiles, to be looked at as if he _wasn't _something to be scrapped off the bottom of their shoes. It was a strange, discomfiting thought.

The idea of having friends?

_Here?_

It was almost as alien a concept as drinking tea with Snape and having a civilized debate about Wizengamot politics.

It wasn't as if he didn't have a choice. He did. He could shut it all out, if he wanted to. Spare himself all of these low feelings by not showing his face. But he was tired of living as a recluse as he had in previous summers, hiding as if he had something to be ashamed of. It felt too much like surrender. To hide was to give into the desolation of always being on the outside looking in as if there was something wrong with him, too old and too deep-set to fix.

That, and he just needed to get out of that _damned _house.

He lengthened his stride, quickening his step as he felt a flash of irritation. The sound of his heels meeting the tarmac held the bite of footsteps a person makes while storming off. A sharper click, that hard rhythm feet only move to in anger.

_You're a right piece of work, Potter_, he thought.

The road was approaching a bend. Not much further there would be two paths, one middling and the other picturesque, bordered by great sycamore trees on either side and leading to an upscale gated community he didn't know the name of.

That wasn't his destination.

Down the middling path he went.

Glancing at his wristwatch, he noted that he'd made good time.

He left the roadside to walk down a trailhead framed by marble walls. The once stark white had been muted over the years by the elements, as had the inset bronze plaque bearing the golden words Summerlake Park. The whoosh of passing cars faded behind him, melding with the sound of the wind, and a familiar calm descended over him. He shivered at the touch of a faint breeze. It carried with it a moist coolness that could be found nowhere else in Surrey this time of year. The sunrise song of the birds wove through the trees as he tread on. He found that he could breathe easier.

He emerged from the path, and his vision was greeted with the transfiguration of dusk to dawn. It stole ihs breath. Sunbeams danced over the mirrorlike water of Summerlake with fiery exuberance. A great snowy expanse of geese were at the edge of the water, their high-pitched honking overwhelming the song of their more musical cousins amidst the nestled branches of the trees. He had risen from bed an hour ago, but this was his real awakening.

His spirits lifted, he made his way to the water's edge and seated himself on an unoccupied bench, setting his backpack beside him. Relaxing, he stretched his legs out in front of him, drinking in the sight of Summerlake. He was glad he had found this refuge, shade was here in abundance and a delicate wind blowing in off the water defied the summer heat. For the months when rain was a distant memory, he could imagine no place he'd rather be.

He glanced at the sun as it began ts ascent over the horizon. He would have to wait until the sun reached the right bearing in the sky. He took a few blueberry scones out from the backpack. The geese were drifting to his side of the lake, and he'd try luring them in with crumbs.

Leaning back idly and folding his arms, he gave his thoughts free rein to meander along misted pathways, wondering about everything and nothing at once. He thought of his friends, Dumbledore, and his teachers, the silent halls of Hogwarts, the stirrings of the Forbidden Forest, the movements of the Dark Lord and his followers, and the dark deeds they had in store for the Wizarding World.

He absentmindedly broke pieces of the scones into crumbs, and tossed them into the flock of geese. Geese were such graceful birds, long-necked and dignified, one half-expected them to turn tail in disdain and swim in the opposite direction in a show of contempt for the bread-thrower. But they lunged and jostled each other as readily as pigeons or crows.

He knew he was in the thick of it all. No matter how many players there were, no matter how many factions poised to clash over the fate of them all, he knew that he was at the center of the widening gyre.

And yet, it all felt so distant.

He didn't know one other wizard or witch living within miles of Privet Drive.

Where did the nearest wizarding family live?

Where was everyone he was destined to kill (_or die)_ for?

The Wizarding World got _really _nebulous beyond its centers of commerce, the Ministry, St. Mungo's, and Hogwarts.

He could feel the storm brewing, but with Voldemort's silence kept it vague and half-formed. This was a peculiar calm before the storm - it felt like things were trapped in stasis. Like he was stuck in the same frame in a film roll, unable to look beyond its edges and see the doom hovering over them all. The Wizarding World was on the brink of war, and he was here, alone in a desolate expanse of British suburbia, forgotten while grown men attended to business.

He wondered how things would look when this peace was broken.

"_Boo,_" a voice breathed into his ear.

Panic tore through him like a lightning bolt, and he stumbled as he flung himself from the bench and sprawled on the gravel pathway. The geese scattered in a storm of frantic honks and flapping wings.

It came too quickly - he seized up. He was going to die, right there, and couldn't feel anything but the stinging pain in his hands and knees.

The killing blow didn't come. There was only him and his own deafening heartbeat.

He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position to face his assailant.

A tall girl with shoulder-length, glossy dark hair stood over him, peering down. He blinked, tracing the laughing curve of her mouth and the mirthful gleam in her eyes. She wore a cropped top that bared her stomach and grey sweat pants that hung low enough on her hips that he averted his eyes from any part of body below her neck on reflex. Her clothes were dampened with perspiration that gave her fair skin a healthy glow.

She didn't look like a killer. She was _pretty_. Harry felt his thought process stall just looking at her.

"So, recognize me?" the girl asked, tone playful. There was a warmth to her voice that would have been disarming under any other circumstance.

He was speechless for a moment. When he found his voice, his words came out in an uncharacteristically hostile hiss.

"No, I do not. I'm guessing that you mistook me for a friend you know."

She pouted in disappointment, before a mischievous look suddenly played across her pretty features. The bizarreness of the whole situation still kept Harry on the back-foot.

"Need a hint?"

Then the oddest thing happened; her eyes turned darkened to a fascinating shade of lilac purple he'd never seen before. He could've sworn that they'd been as blue as Summerlake's waters a moment before. He nervously looked over his shoulder to the distant couple to see if they'd noticed the inexplicable change, but they were too far away.

He returned his gaze to the girl who'd intruded on his reverie, a small, hesitant smile beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth.

He did know her after all.

"Tonks?"

The mischief on her face gave way to a wide, pleased smile.

"Hi Harry!" she said, beaming as she offered her hand.

His face still burned with embarrassment when he grudgingly reached out to accept her hand. Her fingers closed around his and she hauled him back onto his feet. She was a deceptively strong woman.

"Hi Tonks. I thought I was going to die just now," he confessed, a faint blush reddening his cheeks.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Tonks said, clicking her tongue disapprovingly, "I can assure you that you dying is the complete opposite of what I want."

She patted the place beside her and on the other side of the backpack, as if she hadn't dislodged him from it in the first place. Harry gingerly seated himself next to the disguised Auror.

"The Order knows I come here?"

"Yes. Mundungus tailed you the first time you came here," she explained, "He's with you the first few hours. Dung and I switch out around midday, when my shift starts. We leave you to your own devices. We just keep an eye on everyone else in the park, watch for any magical presences. Can't be having some Death Eater sneaking over here and offing you, can we?"

"Oh. All this time?" he asked. "I would've liked the company."

Tonks shifted, momentarily lost for words.

He had tried to sound lighthearted but it didn't quite come out as he intended it to. A hint of hurt coloured his words and that tiny, insignificant thing made everything sound wrong. Harry realized it the instant they left his mouth and grimaced,. Seeing his mortification, Tonks hastened to answer.

"Sorry, Harry," she said, reaching over to touch him on the arm gently. She sounded like she genuinely meant it, "If I'd known you were feeling lonely, I would've approached you."

Tonks paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"And you always seemed to be lost in thought," she added. "I didn't want to interrupt."

Not wanting to dwell on it, he groped for words blindly. Anything to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"So..." he changed the subject, latching onto the first thing he could think of. "Is it exciting?"

"Is what exciting?"

He gestured toward her vaguely.

"You know... being an Auror."

Tonks considered the question, drew her legs up so that she sat cross-legged, rested her elbow on her knee and propped her chin on her palm.

"Eh, it's so-so," she said, making a tilting motion with her free hand, "It's a cyclical kind of thing. A lot of things that seem serious so Aurors get sent out instead of an MLE team, but turn out to be little misdemeanors when we get there. Those always piss me off."

Harry' did a double-take, frowning to himself as he rewound the last few seconds of what he'd heard in his head.

"But there are a lot of ongoing cases which tend to have a... volatile payoff."

She looked at Harry meaningfully.

"You wouldn't believe the last case I handled. It was this harebrained scheme to play a confidence game to get at Gringotts. The guy was bonkers."

"I imagine," Harry said. He sympathized with anyone who tried to part goblins from their money.

"But you know what? That one doesn't even begin to compare to the grand-daddy of Auror casework. The queen _bitch_, as we like to call it."

"What?" And again there was that sudden injection of foul language, but his curiosity overrode that. "What's the grand-daddy of Auror casework?"

"The abduction cases, Harry," Tonks stated flatly."Those cases always ends in a frantic, destructive duel where the abductors go down in a blaze of glory. And nine times out of ten, we find them in a dessicript - no, I mean, uh, dececript... Deprecit?"

She motioned with her hands impatiently.

"Decrepit?" Harry supplied. He'd heard Vernon complaining about a decrepit something or other, and the word seemed to make its way naturally to the tip of his tongue.

She snapped her fingers.

"Yeah! Thanks! Anyway, they're always holed up in some decrepit manor house in a creepy woodland miles away from civilization. First of all, what's up with that? And those houses? They get spectacularly trashed, every single time. It's _awesome_."

Tonks lifted a slender finger to her lips and seemed to be looking skyward, her expression one of casual contemplation.

"As long as the abductee is still alive, of course."

Then she winked.

_Why did she just wink?_ he thought. _Who winks after saying something like that?_

"Er, right," Harry said.

"And these kidnappers? What's most surprising about them is that most of them are just otherwise ordinary people. They sat across the banquet table from you at Hogwarts every morning when you and them were all children. They may have brushed past you on Diagon Alley, or been seated at the next table over at the Three Broomsticks. You know what happens when they're cornered?"

She narrowed her eyes at Harry, a dark glower crossing her face. He was flustered, bewildered at why she was looking at him that way.

"They are _vicious_," Tonks said forcefully, causing Harry to flinch. "That ordinary facade? Poof. Gone. Spells you wouldn't imagine them ever learning are flying at you one after the other. Did you know that, statistically, one out of every thirty kids you eat breakfast, study, and cheer for your House's quidditch team with everyday at will go on to be taken down by one of us in the Auror divsion?

She pantomimed a gun shape with her hand and pretended to pull the trigger.

"And not to brag..." she began, but then she smiled in a way that betrayed the fact that she was about to brag," but I've taken down more than a couple of infamous abductors in my day."

She danced through different emotions as effortlessly as she shifted physique, a Metamorphmagus of physical form and of moods. Harry was starting to get a feel for her whimsical manner. Tonks grinned at him, and Harry's gaze was drawn to the shallowest of dimples in her right cheek. Harry tried to recall whether Tonks had a dimple in her usual form with bubblegum-pink hair, but try as he might, he couldn't remember.

"Yeah," he said, "I guess it's the ones who hide in society and seem like us who are the dangerous ones."

"Exactly. Good takeaway from my story, kiddo," Tonks said, clapping him on the shoulder.

There was this theatrical, high-energy playfulness to Tonks that made talking to her relaxing. Uplifting, even. All thought of Dark Lords, prophecies, dimmed stars, and unreachable friends were driven from his mind.

He wracked his mind for something to say. It was hard though, coming off the Tonks-induced high of amusement. Deciding that he'd been staring forward blankly trying for long enough, he gestured toward her to continue.

"Tell me something else about being an Auror. Something an outsider wouldn't know."

"There's a lot about Aurors that stay within the know... but I suppose I can tell you something that's not common knowledge."

She brooded over this.

"Right. Thinking, thinking... aha!" Tonks exclaimed, snapping her fingers.

"There's a little-known fact. The Aurors have their own Master Archivist to record great deeds, heroic deeds. There's this stone tablet he inscribes these deeds into. It's not in the Auror Office, or even in the Ministry at all, but in a secret place. The names on it are famous; wizards and witches who have averted coalitions of Dark creatures, prevented the downfall of the Ministry, sacrificed themselves for Muggles, infiltrated Dark Wizard secret societies. Some of their names as famous as yours - or at least they used to be. They're all but forgotten by the last few generations, thanks to that senile ghost teaching at Hogwarts."

Her words were rapid-fire and her hands gestured just as fast, the way Hermione's did when she spoke of S.P.E.W. But Harry found what Tonks was saying far more fascinating. Her gestures were a little looser, more casual. It was like she was utterly at ease, and he was happy to share in that.

"The inscribing is an centuries-old custom that we've held to since the Aurors' inception and the Ministry's founding. It's a shame the names of these past Aurors aren't common knowledge anymore."

Harry found his voice.

"Have you ever had your name written in it?" he inquired.

Tonks shrugged. "No, not yet," she said, spreading her hands and looking at her fingernails, "Though I suspect there will be plenty of opportunities in the days to come."

They both fell silent. It was the first time either of them had acknowledged what was happening.

Harry noticed that the geese were beginning to return. They were quiet, peacefully paddling closer to them and leaving gentle ripples in their wake. He resumed tossing crumbs to them. His first toss landed a few feet short of the bird closest to him, but with a burst of speed it gracefully propelled itself forward, closing the distance and snatching the crumb before it could sink under the water.

"Oooh, that looks fun, may I feed the birds too?" Tonks asked, batting her eyelashes.

He nodded readily and handed her a fresh, unbroken scone, and Tonks joined him in flinging crumbs at the amassing geese.

"Hey. I've actually never fed geese before," Tonks realized suddenly.

"Really?" Harry asked, chuckling at her revelation.

"Yeah. No time like the present though," she said brightly.

The geese made beelines for the falling treats, and reared up on their legs with fierce bats of their wings whenever they brushed up against each other, honking their challenges before breaking off.

"So how long have you known about this place?" Tonks asked. She threw crumbs where the geese were closest together, hoping to spark a fight.

"A few weeks, maybe," Harry answered, preferring to throw crumbs toward the outliers of the flock, "I only learned about it this summer. It's a little sad, isn't it? Considering how long I've lived here."

"Maybe a little."

"Gee. Thank you."

"Lighten up!" Tonks said cheerfully, "In all seriousness though, this is really pleasant. I'm glad you come here, instead of being cooped up in that house."

Harry saw out of the corner of his eye that she was looking at him, studying him. He wondered what she thought of him. What kind of image did she have of him within her mind? He hoped she saw the ordinary teenager, untroubled and trying to be upbeat in the unending heat of summer. But somehow he doubted it, despite how lighthearted she was, and how lighthearted she made him in turn.

"Yeah," he said with a grin, "it's a prettier sight than my uncle's ugly mug, isn't it? My aunt's, too."

"Don't insult women's looks. Even your aunt's," Tonks admonished.

Harry smirked. "Okay. Wouldn't want to offend your sensibilities."

"That's right," Tonks shot back haughtily.

"You said your shift starts midday?"

"Yep."

"I was thinking it's a pity it doesn't start closer to daybreak. It's really nice to see here," Harry said, taking his eyes away from the geese and admiring the way the sun's rays filtered through the trees.

Tonks cocked her head to the side. "What's it like?"

"It's like..." he searched for words, "Well, it's dawn. When is that ever _not _amazing to see? For a few minutes, it's like you're standing in a crease in time, and then colour and light have come back. The world has woken up."

"Poetic," Tonks remarked, making a show of examining her fingernails.

Harry gave her a wounded look of such pathos that she couldn't restrain the outburst of girlish laughter.

"Maybe I just can't find the right words," Harry said, his tone rueful.

Tonks quelled her giggles and fanned herself a few times as they died down, slightly embarrassed.

"You'll have to show me one day," she said mirthfully.

"Yes," Harry said, "Maybe when your Auror and Order commitments permit it."

"Brilliant."

They lapsed into a companionable silence, and Tonks grew pensive. Before long, a feeling began to coalesce in Harry that he knew what she was going to say before she said it.

The feeling came from the little signs, but little signs were usually the most telltale.

The way Tonks chewed her lips uneasily, and how the sense of easygoing relaxation seemed to just bleed away from her. Her hand stilled, fingertips absently rubbing together and breaking the scone piece into tiny crumbs. They fell from between her fingers like so many grains of sand.

A pity, they'd been getting along so well, he thought.

She broached the silence.

"Harry..." she began, her tone serious, "I want to talk to you about your excursions to the Glemser Observatory."

He looked at her quizzically.

"Yes?"

"It's... _careless_. Why do you go there without letting any of us know?" Tonks asked.

He had been ready for this line of questioning for a long time, and felt astonishingly mellow. Like he was untouchable to earthly things like sound logic and reasoning. Nothing Tonks could bring to bear could penetrate the protective cocoon of sheer willfulness that enfolded him. He wordlessly dared her to do her worst.

"Maybe because it's a careless thing to do," he said happily. "And I haven't made much effort to be secretive when I leave the house. The Order's known since I first set foot there, and has had someone watching me for every visit. Am I right?"

"That... may be true," Tonks admitted, "but it's different. This is in the middle of London - it's different than guarding you here."

Harry shrugged, the perfect picture of uncaring.

Tonks studied him closely.

"Are you acting this way because of Sirius?" she asked, hesitant and delicate.

Harry sighed grumpily. How quickly he'd lost his invincibility.

"Yes. Or no. I don't know." How frustrating it was to be undecided on this matter.

She reached over to him and touched him on the arm, fixing him with an earnest look.

"Tell me."

Tonks waited for him to say more, and he grudgingly began to elaborate.

"I've never really organized my thoughts... I'll just talk as I think, if that's alright with you."

Tonks nodded in understanding.

He started slow, threading his way forward with short, faltering steps.

"We had so little time together, but he meant a lot to me," he said bleakly, "He was my godfather, yes... but he was also the only other person that I've met who's like me. He was treated wrongfully by a whole society, he was punished for something he didn't do. Just no end to things that he didn't deserve, like Pettigrew betraying him, for instance. Seeing his best friend and his wife die. Ostracized by his family. Getting thrown in Azkaban without a trial and forgotten about."

All of the injustices, all of the things he didn't understand. Tonks had given him an outlet, and he couldn't stop. He found himself getting angrier and angrier, his words picking up pace.

"And just..." and then he ran into a roadblock, the words unwilling to leave his throat, but he forced himself to continue.

"You know what confounds me to this day? It's that Sirius gets to being one little arrest away from having his name cleared, and you know what? It. Doesn't. Fucking. _Happen. _He was that close to getting his life back. That close. And he gets two years of living in a house he hates before he finally gets snuffed out, trying to save me. Every swing of luck went against him. Every possible thing that could have gone wrong for him did. Every. Last. One."

He threw the last crumb to the geese, his eyes stormy as he watched one snatch it out of the air.

He was seething, and even in the midst of his fury he wanted to weep for his godfather's sake. Lament how no one else understood how absurd hand dealt to Sirius was. How misery had tormented Sirius every step of the way, how he just couldn't get a reprieve. Just written off as another sacrifice in the Order's long list of casualties. Sad and noble, but so were the Prewett brothers and all the others, right?

It was all a joke.

"You're wrong about that," Tonks said softly.

She stared at him with a calm assurance that renewed his ire, and made him want to shove all the evils of the world in her face and scream at her for being so utterly blind.

"I mean... He got to meet you. Didn't he?"

He looked at her, a wretched expression on his face.

"Oh God," he chuckled, before he began to laugh despairingly, "Tonks, did you really have to go and say that? Did you -"

Tonks swept him into her embrace, slender arms encircling his shuddering form. She held him still as he clung to her blindly, his fists bunching up the material of her shirt. Teartracks traced her skin, and his body trembled as it was wracked with silent sobs. She had eyes for him only while she held him, paying no mind to the stares of the other couples near them. Harry swallowed, feeling the looks the rest of the people were giving him. He slowly quieted and willed himself still, his raven locks shielding his face.

"It's okay, Harry," she said mildly, patting his back gently.

"I don't think... good people get what they deserve," Harry whispered haltingly. He felt as though something had been carved out of him, but he still bravely tried to control the hiccups. "Something's wrong w-with the world order... with the laws of nature, Tonks. None of this is right."

He mumbled it over and over again against her neck.

_None of this is right._

"I think everyone feels that way at some point in their lives," Tonks said back to him, "Maybe something is wrong with the world. But that's why there are Aurors. That's why there are people like us, and Dumbledore, who dedicate their lives to fighting against that wrongness. And Sirius, too. It's the price we all pay."

"Sirius paid too much," Harry said angrily, shaking his head, "Far too much."

Tonks couldn't think of anything to say to that.

Minutes passed until Harry trusted that he had regained his composure and pulled away, Tonks letting him go without a word.

"Why are you here, Tonks?" he finally asked, eyes boring into hers. "You've never reached out to me before. Did you really do so on a whim? Was it just to question me over my visits to Glemser?"

His stare was too penetrating, too knowing. She opted to tell the truth.

"I came here to tell you something," she said, her expression somber, "You see, there's someone who wants to meet you. We're arranging the location and the timing, but Dumbledore wanted you to know in advance."

"I figured as much," Harry scoffed, his tone flippant and devil-may-care. "Little Potter, to be given instructions secondhand from the bearded one, _guided_ this way and out0"

Tonks stiffened, unconsciously moving a hand to her neck where she felt the moist teartracks on her bare skin.

"Oh stop it," she snapped.

"Sorry," he muttered. "That was out of line."

He was lost in thought for a moment, but snapped out of it. He cleared his throat.

"Okay. Who is he?" he asked, repentant.

"A wizard named Magnus Snow. I don't know too much about him, but during my time at Hogwarts he pioneered breakthrough advances in..." Tonks floundered, uncertainty clear as she tried to recall her memories, "a theory called the Wand Covenant, I think. I tried to understand his papers, but his research was way beyond the N.E.W.T. level. I don't know much about it, but Dumbledore says it'll be beneficial to let the two of you meet."

"Beneficial," Harry echoed.

"Yes."

"For whom?"

Tonks sighed.

"Believe it or not, Dumbledore has tried to learn from how he mishandled things last year. He's trying not to restrict your freedom, or keep you in the dark. He hasn't even stopped any of your trips to Glemser. He only made sure someone was keeping you safe."

"Hm," Harry made a noise of discontent, looking down at his hands darkly, "I think I get it. Dumbledore lets me have my way with the small things, like visits to Astronomy observatories, but he has the final word on the big decisions. The ones that matter. Have I got it right?"

He started as she held him firmly by the shoulders, and physically turned his body so that he faced her. Harry was acutely aware of her nails digging into his skin.

"You can look at it that way," Tonks said in a low, measured voice. "I wouldn't blame you. You're a teenager, you have the right to be cynical and selfish. But I know that's not you."

"How would you have me look at it, then?" Harry asked sullenly.

His gaze was still downcast. Spurred on by impulse and a flash of irritation, she cupped his face with both hands and locked gazes. Their faces were uncomfortably close together.

"I'd have you remember what Dumbledore stands for," she stated. "What I'm saying - and you have my word as an Auror that I believe this - is that if Dumbledore wants you to meet Snow, then it's because he thinks it will help us save lives, and give us an advantage in the war that's about to unfold. This is a choice - no one's going to drag you kicking and screaming and make you go to this meeting. But would you choose otherwise?"

They stared hard at each other. It wasn't long until Harry wilted under the intensity of her glare and relented, as they both knew he would. He found it touching that she had such faith in his decency, and he found himself amused by his own predictability.

"Fine," Harry said in surrender, wrenching himself free and nursing his shoulders where she'd gripped him tightly. "I'll go and meet whoever Dumbledore wants me to meet."

With that, he began busying himself with digging through the backpack.

"The meeting shouldn't last too long, so don't worry," Tonks said, watching him in consternation. "What are you doing?"

He felt strangely detached from himself. He was surprised, in that clinical way, that he didn't feel the urge to flee the scene and slink back to the guestroom in Privet Drive Number Four and hide there with his shame and humiliation. It was that intrinsic male hatred of displaying weakness in front of women. It was like Cho Chang's tears but with the roles reversed, and magnified to be a hundred times worse. But somehow, he didn't feel all that embarrassed.

He pushed aside the thoughts of Sirius, Dumbledore, of this Magnus Snow, and focused on the here and now. It was just him and Tonks here, and oddly enough, he found himself wanting to show her something spectacular.

"Since Dumbledore knows about my visits, there's no point in pretenses, is there?"

He searched through his backpack, and produced a pair of spyglasses, his personal instrument and the spare. With a flick of his wrists, they were fully extended.

"Bodies of water," he explained matter-of-factly, offering the spare to her. "They retain the image of the constellations, like memory weave... Stargaze with me?"

The question was one few ever expected to hear in broad daylight, and he saw the side of her mouth twitch as the thought occurred to her too. He met her gaze and held her assessing stare. An imperturbable calm had settled over him and he didn't give an inch. At last, Tonks snatched it from his hand and looked at it uncertainly. She watched Harry, and copying his actions, they raised the spyglasses to their eyes as one.

Tonks' breath hitched as the eastern edge of the lake came alive.

Morning-glories beyond count sprung into existence.

Pale silhouettes of the distant stars lying in pools of fire, nebulous and wispy.

A thousand-fold sun dogs that set the waters aglow. They spanned every imaginable spectrum like the brainchild of Picasso and Boniface and Monet and all the other greats, warring against each other with brushes and knives and letting their unfettered chaos grace the sight of the two perceivers.

They were brightest in the shallows near the lakeshore, and shimmered brilliantly even far away from the shoreline. Tonks held her breath. Their starlight wove an infinitely-layered web of filaments of every colour. Their fringes bled into one another, electric blues and voluminous purples and volcanic reds. Some outshone others, and even from the deeps of the lake their light melded with the stars above and shone through in delicate, diaphanous rays that were otherwordly in the water.

At first, Tonks was saddened by the way the light of the more feeble stars were overwhelmed. But she realized that the brighter stars didn't impose their superior luminescence on the fainter ones with tyrannical strength or brute force. They gave the light of the stars above them depth, and the colours overlapped in a way she'd never witnessed in the finest paintings. Even enmeshed, they retained their purity.

Blue in green.

Lapis-luzili shining through veins of silver and gold.

An amaranthine ocean that human minds could never grasp, even if they had all eternity to learn its wild depths and tides.

Tonks marveled at it all.

"I've never seen anything like it before," she breathed.

Her awestruck tone reminded him of the first time he'd stargazed by water.

"But I've never seen anything like this at Hogwarts. Is this N.E.W.T. level astronomy?"

He had to smile.

"Beyond that."

And despite all of that ethereal beauty, Tonks was able to tear her gaze away and gave Harry a sidelong glance. Her younger companion's eyes were half-lidded in concentration, peering carefully through the spyglass. He looked handsome in profile. She could see the subtle movements of his facial muscles, the rise and fall of his chest. It struck her that the Daily Prophet had rarely gotten ever a decent photo of him. On the front page, he was always out of his element, always harassed and bent under pressure. In that spell-binding moment though, Harry looked like what a young man should look like. But he was so much more than just another wizard, sadly so. Soft, stealing shadows played across his face, and she saw high tragedy, the scars of Herculean ordeals, and the undecipherable scrawl of fate writ on his youthful features.

It was somehow harder to wrench her stare away from Harry than it was from the lake, but she forced herself to do it lest he take notice.

"But they're so... complex," she said, a note of curiosity in her voice. "How are you making sense of it all?

"It's hard. And this is only a sliver of what's out there. I found out that," he pointed to a spectacular collection of stars that were hued with darker, more sinister colours than any of the others, "is the Hyades cluster, not too long ago."

"And you know, this lake doesn't reflect the entire universe. It's much too small for that. I could be following the wrong clues, in which case I'd be wasting my time. But that's fine. There's nothing else like it in the world - it's worth watching for its own sake, even if it doesn't take me closer to my goals... You know what I mean?"

Tonks could only murmur in assent.

Hours passed by in companionable silence, broken occasionally when Harry identified the phantom images for Tonks and lectured her on the basics. _'The stars closer to the surface are the ones closer to earth. It gets harder to see the ones below clearly, but you can still see the delineations if you know how to look...'_She listened attentively, but was content to keep quiet and scour the lake, riveted by the empyrean beauty Harry had unveiled for her. Before she knew it, they had slipped free of time's grasp. They heard only the gentle mingling of distant voices, rustling of leaves, birdsong, and the sound of crystalline water caressing the lakeshore.

The sunlight slanted westward ever so slowly, and stars began to fade like breath on glass. Like the sunrise itself, new constellations begin to surface in a ghostly symphony of lights, as tantalizing as their vanished brethren.

The spell was broken by the cries of the geese as they took flight, sending a cacophony of ripples dancing through the water and shattering the memories of stars into shards of afterimages. The images began to reform as the ripples subsided, and Tonks felt strangely breathless. She was compelled to speak to him, the boy who had shown her all of this.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Tonks asked softly, amethyst eyes bright.

He hadn't. These were elusive answers, ones he might never find on his own even if he searched all summer's length. But he smiled nonetheless, for he spied in that boundless ocean a youngling star that had its own secret to tell.

"No," he said, a secretive little smile playing about his lips. "Not yet."

He lowered his spyglass.

"You look like you're hiding something," Tonks said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

"Do I?" Harry shot back.

"Aren't you gonna tell me?" she tried to hint, nudging him in the side.

Harry shook his head.

There would be rainfall soon to end this spell of summer, the young star had confided in him. He refused to divulge this despite Tonks' prodding, which soon turned into the most shameful whining.

The joys of keeping little secrets.

* * *

_To come, Chapter II: The First Link in the Chain_

* * *

One thing that's always irked me about girls in HP fanfiction is how few of them are _fun to hang out with._ Seriously, how fundamental and important is that? If there's going to be sparks, you've got to be able to enjoy being around that person. That's what I wanted for Tonks.

I'm especially proud of my stargazing-by-water concept. I consider it to be the best idea I've ever had for any of my stories, and there are more to come in future chapters that I think are of equal caliber. I'm excited to share them with you.

A massive thank you to iLost and Swimdraconian, for helping me edit the prologue and this chapter.

I already rambled about how great the response to the prologue made me feel, but I have to say thanks again. Much love for you guys. :3 If you enjoyed this chapter, I'd appreciate it if you reviewed!


	3. Interlude I

**Weaves a Hundred Ravens In His Schemes  
**By EclecticParrot  
Interlude I: A Letter Arrives in the Dead of Night

* * *

The low hum of air conditioner compressors coiled within his mind like a living thing. It was an anti-lullaby, drawing him back to wakefulness whenever he was on the verge of dozing off.

He lay immobile on his back as the minutes crawled past. He tried all the tricks: focusing on his limbs one by one and willing them to sleep, counting sheep, trying to think himself into exhaustion. Nothing worked, and he finally threw his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself into a sitting position, elbows resting on his knees.

The noise troubled him. He had always associated the night with stillness and quiet but for cricketsong. Did true night exist anymore?

Bands of moonlight fluttered like butterflies on the ceiling, cast there by window blinds that were doing a terrible job. He leaned back with an arm behind his head, and remained in that position for a while, staring up at the ceiling and thinking. The moonlight illumined the map bound to the plaster of the ceiling, its edges help up by peeling lines of yellowed tape. It looked eerily occult, which was the effect he'd been going for. It frightened the Dursleys, who couldn't have known the arcane symbols were the language of star maps. They'd begun suspecting he was a Satanist, and Harry hadn't disabused them of the notion because he thought it was funny. From their point of view, he was already a scion of witchcraft, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to take that connection a little further.

But they knew he was obsessed with something, and it made them wary of him.

It was evident in how short he was with them, and they knew it bore some relation to his morning trips out of Little Whinging. He didn't care how his relatives perceived him so he'd made no effort to hide anything. But the opposite was true about Ron and Hermione. He didn't really have an opportunity to give himself away, but the thought of their would-be disapproval if they found out irked him. They'd think he was changed for the worse, and link any abnormalities in his behavior to Sirius' death... And they'd be right. He was the first person to admit the obsessive nature of his hunt. He just... wanted it to be over. All he wanted was to just find the object of his search before the end of summer, and see his friends without the ignorance of his fate weighing down his soul.

On the other hand...

He'd been able to create a magical moment with a friend because of that same fixation on astronomy. He'd robbed it straight from a fairy tale and brought it to life. He pictured Tonks' astonished face as she saw a hidden facet of the stars.

_Yes,_ he decided right then and there. It was worth it.

Speaking of Tonks, she had been a stranger for the past few days - he guessed her shift didn't cover that block of the week. A part of him was disappointed she hadn't come to talk to him again of her own accord, but she had her own duties and life.

In their conversation, she had given a small piece of news for him to mull over.

He would be meeting with someone named Magnus Snow.

He hardly knew anything about the man, just what Tonks told him, but he read a deeper meaning: this was Dumbledore's first move.

Their first interaction in the wake of his fifth year. Harry hoped it was a statement that he'd be taken into the headmaster's fold, and he'd be involved in his plans.

He was a little apprehensive. Was Snow an old friend of Dumbledore's? A former student? A colleague? Tonks hadn't said anything about the nature of their relationship. He itched to dig through old issues of the Daily Prophet and to perhaps find a profile of him, or an article covering him receiving an award for his research. It seemed that Dumbledore was playing this close to the chest, giving Harry a name and scarcely anything else through Tonks.

A light but insistent rapping at the window drew his attention. Harry reached over to the nightstand, put on his spectacles, and peered at his nighttime visitor. An owl had landed on the windowsill, and cocked its head sideways as it met his gaze. It was a breed he hadn't seen before, with imperious yellow eyes, streaks of black and white feathers, and a striking dark crown.

He let his visitor in. It took a flutter-step onto his desk, where it patiently waited as Harry untied the envelope attached to its leg. He paid it with a premium owl treat from the drawer of his desk.

Furrowing his brow, he seated himself and switched his reading lamp on. It was odd that a letter would come at such an unusual time. It was unlabeled, too, and was sealed by black wax without any insignia imprinted upon it. Owls could cover the entire length and breadth of the mainland in mere hours, and Harry could recall only a handful of times when he'd received a letter past midnight. Perhaps the sender had been overseas at the beginning of the owl's journey, he speculated.

He extracted the letter and held it under the lamp.

_Hello Harry,_

_I should like to say that this is a very peculiar letter for me to write.  
_

_My preference has been to err on the side of staying quiet, to not announce my presence ahead of schedule. This policy of prudence has served me well through my retirement years. But after thinking late into the night, I decided it would be worth it to reach out to you and pen this letter. There is much to learn from a person's writing.  
_

_My name is Magnus. I was born a generation after the legendary Albus Dumbledore, and I consider myself an old man. For the last twenty years, I have been enjoying a quiet life of retirement in a lovely abode by the sea, and spend time with my wife, and await visits from my children during the holidays. I had considered the troubles of my life to be over._

_As you well know, responsibility has a way of worming into the lives of those too young and too old to bear it. Yet, I am not a man who shirks his responsibilities and neither are you. Duty calls us both to the preservation of our homeland.  
_

_You need not fear me. You need not be apprehensive._

_We will meet, we will discuss things, and I will do what is within my power to help you.  
_

_I am in the process of making the last arrangements for my safe and discrete arrival. Dumbledore will tell your escort all but the last step in how to reach me. This piece of information I entrust only to you.  
_

_Follow the red cat down the alley, and through the doorway.  
_

_We have much to discuss.  
_

_Yours truly,  
_

_Magnus Snow_

Harry's eyes wandered from the elegant writing to the flourish of the signature, the hook of the 'g' tapering off near the end of the page.

There was a living intensity to the words, and he wondered if that indicated something about Magnus's personality, as his remark about people's writing seemed to suggest.

He reread it again and again.

"I will do what is within my power..." Harry muttered.

Magnus had clearly taken pains to convey his sincerity. It was a good gesture to reach out to him and try and put his mind at ease, he decided.

The ending of the letter bothered him a little, though.

"The red cat, huh?" he muttered.

The cryptic nature of that line nagged at him more and more the longer his thoughts lingered on it. What did that actually mean? It felt... cheap, to claim to be entrusting him with a valuable piece of information, then giving him such vague instructions. Words without the intentions behind them being true were meaningless and he had no desire to put up with them.

Perhaps more frustrating was that this introduced more ambiguity regarding Snow, not less. Harry would've liked a more... informative introduction. How had this man figured in the wizarding world before he had left? The overall tone of the message was that he would be taking pains to arrive safely in Britain. Was his research considered dangerous? Was he wary because of political factors?

Harry let out an elongated exhalation of breath, and sat there, quiet.

He supposed he would find out when he met Magnus face to face.

The owl, Pirellus, was pecking at the treat, unmindful of Harry's consternation. There was a soft sound, and Pirellus froze as something else in the room captured his attention. He perked up when he noticed Hedwig, who was stirring from her slumber. His eyes widened. The male owl faltered as if uncertain what to do, but then the feathers of the crown rose up boldly. He took the treat and in a floating hop flew over onto the edge of his wardrobe, landing right next to her cage. Pirellus hooted softly, shyly offering the treat through the bar. Hedwig accepted the offering graciously.

Harry watched them broodingly from his chair, chin resting on his hand.

It was such so innocent, the dimunitive white owl taking ladylike pecks at the treat, with the besotted owl with streaks of black and white trying to win her attention. He couldn't stop from grinning at the sight.

Hedwig finished nibbling away at a bite, before turning her beak up haughtily in a sudden withdrawal of her affections. Harry, recognizing her signal, rose and sternly nudged the besotted owl, Pirellus, onto the window and closed it shut behind it. It protested and hooted to Hedwig in a pitiful manner, but Hedwig tucked her head beneath her wing and feigned sleep. A few moments passed before the spurned owl gave a last mournful hoot and took off into the night.

Another suitor turned down._  
_

"That's my girl," he said softly, "Who's too good for all the boy owls but teases them anyway?"

Hedwig opened an amber eye at the sound of his teasing voice, and then closed it, returning to sleep for real this time.

There was something cathartic about that diversion. The drone of the air conditioner compressors faded to a buzz that made an acceptable substitute for silence, and leaving the window open had lent the air a coolness that wasn't there before. His face went stony, and he folded the letter from Magnus Snow, adding it to the haphazard pile at the back of the desk's left drawer.

He switched the reading lamp off and the moonlight-threaded darkness returned to his room.

Sliding under the covers, he fell asleep wondering if the male owls ever fantasized of being gallant knights, liberating the sad, snow-white princess Hedwig from the cage of her master, the sinister Dark Lord Potter.

* * *

_To come, Chapter II: The First Link in the Chain_

* * *

I'm terribly sorry for the lateness and brevity of this update. Life has been very eventful, the stress of school, securing a summer job, first-ever girlfriend, started reading up on finances, and got my family to sell our gold ETF futures holdings prior to the mid-April clobbering on the Comex (the main reason I avoided having to transfer schools, dropping out, or Bernankifying myself balls-deep in non-dischargable federal debt).

In the meantime though, I've found time to plan the story's plot to a much greater degree of sophistication. I've managed to talk to an amazing NYTimes best-selling author based where I study, a certain famous cult author based in Portland, and professors at my university's political sciences and economics departments. And a few of my favorite writers on FFNet as well.

Only a few hours' worth of communication total, but it's amazing how people are willing to hear you out if you make the effort to approach them respectfully. My writing might not live up to the people who inspired me, but I am confident that the plot will be really cool. So at least there's that.

Still thinking of you guys, and Chapter II and III coming soon with little time in between.


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